This new article by psychologist Satoshi Kanazawa concludes that more intelligent people are more likely to be politically liberal [HT: Ronald Bailey]. It has gotten a great deal of media attention, for example from CNN and Time. In reality, the article doesn’t actually prove any such thing. It has several significant methodological flaws.
I. Conflating Liberalism with Universalism.
Kanazawa uses a highly idisoyncratic definition of liberalism: “genuine concern for the welfare of genetically unrelated others and the willingness to contribute larger proportions of private resources for the welfare of such others.” This definition doesn’t distinguish liberalism from conservatism or libertarianism. It distinguishes universalism from particularism. For example, a libertarian who believes that free market policies best promote the welfare of “genetically unrelated others” and contributes a great deal of his money to charities promoting libertarian causes counts as a liberal under this definition. The same goes for a Religious Right conservative who believes that everyone will be better off under socially conservative policies and contributes lots of money to church charities. In fact, recent research by Arthur Brooks shows that conservatives and other opponents of government redistribution give more, on average, to charity than other members of the population.
When Kanazawa actually correlates measures of intelligence with views of particular issues, he finds that, controlling for various other variables, more intelligent General Social Survey (GSS) respondents are less likely to support government-mandated efforts to ” reduce the differences in income between people with high incomes and those with low incomes.” This is hardly consistent with claims that the more intelligent are more politically liberal in the conventional sense of the term.
II. Relying on Dubious Ideological Self-Identifications.
To be sure, Kanazawa also cites surveys showing that the more intelligent are more likely than others to describe themselves as “liberal” and less likely to call themselves “conservative.” However, decades of research show that large percentages of the population have a poor understanding of political ideology and have a poor grasp of the meaning of terms like “liberal” and “conservative” (at least as they are understood by pundits and scholars). This is part of the more general phenonemon of widespread rational political ignorance. Ideological self-identifications are notoriously unreliable as indicators of real political views. For example, more African-Americans describe themselves as “conservative” than “liberal,” even though this description fits neither their issue positions nor their voting patterns. In recent decades, the term “liberal” has acquired a negative connotation, so much so that many liberals have taken to calling themselves “progressives.” This makes it likely that some liberal survey respondents won’t identify with the term, especially among the less-educated and less politically knowledgeable.
The shortcomings of self-identification are exacerbated by the fact that many voters hold views that are hard to place on a one-dimensional liberal-conservative spectrum. Some 10-15% of Americans hold libertarian views, and there is also a significant proportion who are the opposite of libertarian (socially conservative, economically left-wing).
Finally, Kanazawa fails to control for the effects of political knowledge, which is probably correlated with intelligence, but also distinct from it. Previous research shows that increased political knowledge causes people to become more libertarian (economically conservative and socially liberal) than they would be otherwise, with the important exception of views on taxation. This is almost exactly what Kanazawa finds to be the impact of intelligence, including the taxation result.
III. Are Ideologies Endorsed by More Intelligent People More Likely to Be Correct?
I suspect that much of the public interest in Kanazawa’s study is driven by a perception that political views endorsed by more intelligent people are more likely to be true. This, however, is a dubious inference. Even intelligent people have incentives to be rationally ignorant about politics and to do a poor job of evaluating the information they do know. I do think that, other things equal, a political view is more likely to be correct if it is more likely to be endorsed by people with greater knowledge of the issue (controlling for other factors that may affect their answers). While knowledge and intelligence are likely to be correlated, they are not the same thing. Ultimately, the fact that a political ideology is more likely to be endorsed by more intelligent people is only a weak indicator of its validity.
Interestingly, Kanazawa himself does not claim that intelligent people are more likely to endorse liberalism because it is true. Instead, he argues that the result is due to the fact that liberalism is more at odds with our genetic instincts than conservatism is, and intelligent people are more likely to endorse “novel” ideas. I don’t agree with the “Burkean conservative” view that we should have a strong presumption in favor of following tradition. But the opposite presumption is also an error.
UPDATE: Kanazawa also argues that his data prove that more intelligent people are more likely to endorse atheism. If time permits, I will address this issue a separate post.
UPDATE #2: Here is a link to an ungated PDF of Kanazawa’s article [HT: James Joyner, who also has links to various other critiques of Kanazawa].
mattski says:
I don’t know but I’ll tell you this:
Rush Limbaugh’s job description includes making his listeners ignorant.
February 27, 2010, 5:22 pmAnonsters says:
If the percentages are large enough, one might think that what the decades of research actually show is that pundits and scholars are the ones with the poor grasp of the meaning of terms like “liberal” and “conservative.”
February 27, 2010, 5:22 pmIlya Somin says:
Rush Limbaugh’s job description includes making his listeners ignorant.
Maybe. But the same can be said of various liberal pundits.
February 27, 2010, 5:25 pmmattski says:
Would you care to name some names?
February 27, 2010, 5:27 pmShelbyC says:
Do you really want to turn the comments section into a peeing contest?
February 27, 2010, 5:36 pmMarc DeGirolami says:
Ilya, thanks for highlighting the piece and your thoughts. I probably ought to read it myself, but was wondering if you might share briefly how the author measures intelligence in order to correlate it with these views.
Marc
February 27, 2010, 5:39 pmMarc DeGirolami says:
Sorry, I see from the attached link that the measurement is by IQ test.
February 27, 2010, 5:42 pmptt says:
I think we can all agree that Rush Limbaugh pees waaaaaay more than any liberal pundit, at least based on the size of his, ahem, target audience.
February 27, 2010, 5:46 pmrhinoman says:
Personally, I think Professor Kanazawa should be made to do a study of the prevalence of confirmation bias among provincial pseudo-intellectual scholars.
Oh, and I’m betting – total shot in the dark here – that Professor Kanazawa identifies himself as “moderate but perhaps slightly lefty”. Not that it would affect his study. Perish the thought.
February 27, 2010, 5:53 pmcboldt says:
Even assuming the “Liberals are smarter” conclusion, my reaction would be “So what?”
February 27, 2010, 6:11 pmAre these “smart liberals” asserting that, on account of their superior wisdom, they have the moral right to order stupid people how to run their own lives?
Arthur Kirkland says:
I am very skeptical about “liberals are smarter” or “conservatives are more charitable” studies.
I am less skeptical about measured intelligence being associated with particular points along the reason/superstition divide, but I am not sure any differences are worth worrying about.
February 27, 2010, 6:13 pmAllan Walstad says:
So–”Too clever by half” may have a statistical basis?
February 27, 2010, 6:19 pmAnonsters says:
Indeed. I like this answer the best.
And there is no puppy bias involved.
February 27, 2010, 6:22 pmKazinski says:
That is an interesting definition of Liberalism. Research has shown that “liberals” are willing to dedicate larger proportions of others private resources while “conservatives” are more willing to contribute larger proportions of their own resources.
February 27, 2010, 6:25 pmSk says:
These types of ‘studies’ are getting more frequent, for some reason. I am used to an academic study proving that liberals are smarter than conservatives about once a decade, but this is the second one I can recall from the last two or three years.
Its odd that liberals control the presidency, the house, the Senate, the media, and academia, yet they are still desperate enough to grasp at straws like this…
Sk
February 27, 2010, 6:38 pmLaura(southernxyl) says:
To me, this appears to imply that conservatives do not have genuine concern for the welfare of genetically unrelated others. Otherwise, why spell that out?
And as others point out, there’s more than one way to look at the welfare of others and what’s best for them. I have a friend whose niece’s children are designated as disabled and who get SS benefits. The kids aren’t in any kind of therapy for which that money is spent; it goes for general household income. One might reasonably ask whether a monetary incentive now exists for those kids’ disabilities to be maintained rather than remediated. Under the definition given for liberalism, a liberal can only concern himself with caring about those kids and giving them (other peoples’) money, not questioning whether that’s really helping and in fact not actually hurting them.
February 27, 2010, 6:48 pmBK says:
This reminds me of LSAT prep 101: Correlation is not causation.
February 27, 2010, 6:55 pmorca says:
Perhaps “conservatives” worry more about other people “getting away with” something?
February 27, 2010, 6:55 pmLaura(southernxyl) says:
Orca, do you base that on anything other than your dislike of conservatives?
February 27, 2010, 6:56 pmMichael B says:
Oh yea, one can view liberal intellects afire in any number of fora, assuming spittle, traducements and various other forms of coercion and dismissiveness count for intellect.
February 27, 2010, 6:59 pmyankee says:
Sadly, the article is behind a paywall, so I can’t read it. But here’s an obvious question: how is the article measuring “intelligence”? The limitations of whatever metric is being used to measure “intelligence” will necessarily carry over to the study’s conclusions.
February 27, 2010, 7:00 pmNick says:
Has Satoshi Kanazawa never heard of Arthur Brooks? This study proves the opposite of what its author thinks it proves.
February 27, 2010, 7:05 pmJohn Herbison says:
Perhaps Rush Limbaugh, whose principal shtick is attracting listeners in order to sell his program to afilliates, figured out that John Stuart Mill had figured correctly about conservatives.
Is it coincidence that Rush has thrived in a medium whose audience need not know how to read?
February 27, 2010, 7:09 pmorca says:
I think conservatives are kinda cute.
They just seem to talk a lot about people “getting away with” stuff.
February 27, 2010, 7:12 pmLaura(southernxyl) says:
Are they using those specific words that you put quotes around? Or is this your biased interpretation of what they are saying? You’re not assigning immoral motives to people because you dislike them, are you, in the very teeth of them telling you what their motives really are?
February 27, 2010, 7:21 pmArkady says:
Gosh, wonder what J.S. Mill’s take on this issue might have been. Perhaps:
February 27, 2010, 7:25 pmNick says:
To quote John Kerry:
“We shouldn’t be opening firehouses in Baghdad and closing them down in the United States of America.”
Note that he’s specifically talking about firefighting, and not more controversial things. He’s complaining about the cost, in the climactic set-piece speech of the Democratic National Convention of 2004, of saving homes and lives from the kind of fires that some guy in his home can’t put out on his own. He’s specifically talking about helping foreigners, and how expensive that is.
So according to Satoshi Kanazawa, John Kerry’s a conservative.
February 27, 2010, 7:29 pmlgm says:
Yes, clearly. That’s the nature of intelligence.
As above.
With all due respect, those “it’s rational to be ignorant” posts were thin. In my experience with smart and very smart people, curiosity goes with intelligence. The very smart people have natural curiosity. Richard Feynman was interested in rugs from somewhere (Kazakhstan?). You know that if you did the study, smart people would come out knowing much more about politics than less smart people.
February 27, 2010, 7:34 pmorca says:
Is it immoral to constantly worry that somebody else is “getting away with” something?
February 27, 2010, 7:38 pmLaura(southernxyl) says:
Yes, it is.
So are you assigning that motive to people who tell you that, for instance, children might be encouraged not to get over their disabilities if their parents depend on SS for household income? You would discount the possibility that those people truly are concerned about the kids?
February 27, 2010, 7:41 pmJohn Herbison says:
Referring to political views–which are largely opinions–being “true” or “false” arouses my skepticism. As the law of defamation teaches, opinions are neither true nor false (although an opinion that suggests an underlying, false factual basis may nevertheless be actionable).
February 27, 2010, 7:45 pmJohn Herbison says:
That last comment should have read “the expression of an opinion that suggests an underlying, false factual basis my nevertheless be actionable”.
February 27, 2010, 7:48 pmcboldt says:
Q: Are Ideologies Endorsed by More Intelligent People More Likely to Be Correct?
February 27, 2010, 7:54 pm– lgm: Yes, clearly. That’s the nature of intelligence. –
The question and answer are both void of moral calculus. Smart people can easily take advantage of stupid people. Smart people are better liars, etc.
David Nieporent says:
Clever, only of course “conservative” referred to something different in the context of Mill’s time than it does in the current U.S.
February 27, 2010, 7:59 pmBloodthirsty Warmonger says:
This ‘study’ is so biased in favor of elitism that it can be dismissed out of hand. A reductio ad absurdum argument can be made that since the Democratic Party defended slavery and segregation, that it should be designated the party of racism. It never ceases to amaze me that so many blacks cling to a party that takes them for granted, so many Jews automatically vote for a party that is increasingly anti-Israel and anti-Jewish, so many Hispanics support a party that pushes policies that are counter to their traditions, and so many Asians are loyal to a party that hasn’t always been loyal to them. This, to me, is one of the deepest mysteries of the universe.:-)
February 27, 2010, 8:09 pmcboldt says:
– This, to me, is one of the deepest mysteries of the universe. –
February 27, 2010, 8:13 pmEasily resolved with a simple “follow the money.”
orca says:
Yes, I would.
February 27, 2010, 8:13 pmPubliusFL says:
People like Wall Street bankers, the wealthy, health insurance companies, the police, and George W. Bush? Plenty of “getting away with” talk from both ends of the spectrum, I think.
February 27, 2010, 8:15 pmjccamp says:
“Are Ideologies Endorsed by More Intelligent People More Likely to Be Correct?”
I don’t think I agree with this. Native intelligence – as captured via IQ testing per the survey cited – does not seem to be an accurate predictor of an ability to cope with modern life. Poor social skills and an inability to experience human empathy – whether from gene or environment – do not seem to be the exclusive purview of the less intelligent. If anything, the converse may be true. For instance, the truly bright may feel some degree of separation and detachment from the group. Or, an example, the really gifted may seek a career within a subculture which shelters them from life experiences commonplace to the rest of us, like a broken toilet, or mowing the grass.
Especially when discussing political theory and government, the practical must not be subservient to the theoretical, a distinction undetectable to some perhaps.
And what cboldt says, too.
February 27, 2010, 8:16 pmPubliusFL says:
People like, say, Laura(southernxyl)?
February 27, 2010, 8:16 pmjccamp says:
I see the first post is still there. I thought it was scrambled by the editor and asked that it be deleted.
February 27, 2010, 8:19 pm1040 says:
would fit in perfectly with the fact that kerry is a bit of a dumbass.
February 27, 2010, 8:22 pmBrett Bellmore says:
But we should. Poor societies fight fire with firefighters, wealthy societies fight fires by building buildings which don’t catch fire. And only stupid societies install sprinkler systems, but keep just as many fire fighters on the payroll anyway.
February 27, 2010, 8:26 pmLaura(southernxyl) says:
Orca, are you of the opinion that there are haves and have-nots, and the haves need to (1) write the have-nots a check and (2) shut up? And possibly (3) drop dead if they can arrange it? Because that is the clear impression that I get. And if it is, I wonder if anyone else who comments here will co-sign.
February 27, 2010, 8:42 pmCato The Elder says:
Of course I’m sure you’re aware of Kanazawa’s “shocking” research arguing that essentially all racial pay discrimination ended in the in the 1970s (“The Myth of Racial Discrimination in Pay in
February 27, 2010, 8:46 pmthe United States”) and his belief that female beauty is essentially one-dimensional and cross-culturally invariant (“All Stereotypes are True…Except Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder”) Oh, no, you don’t share those beliefs? Then it might be advisable for you to appraise yourself of Kanazawa’s philosophy before you begin to preen.
orca says:
That’s true.
Perhaps judgmental vs. non-judgmental is a better split than conservative vs. liberal.
February 27, 2010, 8:47 pmLaura(southernxyl) says:
With Orca firmly on the judgmental side.
…I glanced at the one about racial pay discimination ending in the 70′s. Kanazawa says that it ends if you control for cognitive ability. Apparently correlating things with IQ is a hobbyhorse of his.
February 27, 2010, 8:52 pmPerseus says:
How refreshing of you to try to imitate the “insulting clarity” (as Nietzsche put it) of that mediocre Englishman.
February 27, 2010, 8:52 pmD.O. says:
Prof. Somin, would you care to explain what it is being correct in one’s political views? If I think that government should take care of economic welfare of the poor as they are right now, and you think that government should care about poor people in the future by promoting policies, which reduces the absolute or relative poverty, and the next guy thinks that the government should not be concerned with anybody’s economic status at all, what kind of objective measure can tell who is correct? (Mind, I do not ask for the measure to be checked right away, just that it can be checked at least in principle).
February 27, 2010, 8:54 pmNRWO says:
UPDATE: Kanazawa also argues that his data prove that more intelligent people are more likely to endorse atheism. If time permits, I will address this result in a separate post.
The evidence for a (negative) correlation between intelligence and religious belief is clear.
e.g.,
Lynn, Richard; John Harvey and Helmuth Nyborg. “Average intelligence predicts atheism rates across 137 nations”. Intelligence.
Abstract: [...] It is shown that intelligence measured as psychometric g is negatively related to religious belief. [...] We find that in a sample of 137 countries the correlation between national IQ and disbelief in God is 0.60.
Nyborg, Helmuth (2009). “The intelligence–religiosity nexus: A representative study of white adolescent Americans”. Intelligence.
Abstract: The present study examined whether IQ relates systematically to denomination and income within the framework of the g nexus, using representative data from the National Longitudinal Study of Youth (NLSY97). Atheists score 1.95 IQ points higher than Agnostics, 3.82 points higher than Liberal persuasions, and 5.89 IQ points higher than Dogmatic persuasions. [...]
February 27, 2010, 9:01 pmNRWO says:
UPDATE: Kanazawa also argues that his data prove that more intelligent people are more likely to endorse atheism. If time permits, I will address this result in a separate post.
The evidence for a (negative) correlation between intelligence and religious belief is clear.
See, e.g.,
Lynn, Richard; John Harvey and Helmuth Nyborg. “Average intelligence predicts atheism rates across 137 nations”. Intelligence.
Abstract: [...] It is shown that intelligence measured as psychometric g is negatively related to religious belief. [...] We find that in a sample of 137 countries the correlation between national IQ and disbelief in God is 0.60.
Nyborg, Helmuth (2009). “The intelligence–religiosity nexus: A representative study of white adolescent Americans”. Intelligence.
Abstract: The present study examined whether IQ relates systematically to denomination and income within the framework of the g nexus, using representative data from the National Longitudinal Study of Youth (NLSY97). Atheists score 1.95 IQ points higher than Agnostics, 3.82 points higher than Liberal persuasions, and 5.89 IQ points higher than Dogmatic persuasions. [...]
February 27, 2010, 9:04 pmsteve s says:
He should have used a better definition of liberal and conservative. Liberal meaning the belief that it is possible to effect positive changes in society through the agency of government. Conservatives opposing that belief.
Steve
February 27, 2010, 9:08 pmleo marvin says:
Ilya said,
I assume you’re aware that the Brooks book you cite to show significant methodological flaws in Kanaza’s article has itself been criticized by your co-Conspirator, Jim Lindgren, as having significant methodological flaws.
To the extent the measure of a political view’s correctness is its ability to predict outcomes, you may be wrong. There’s evidence that greater knowledge of issues doesn’t increase the accuracy of related predictions.
February 27, 2010, 9:15 pmAnonimus says:
The opposite is as likely or more likely to be true. Intellectual elites often fall for things like communism, fascism, progressivism, etc.
February 27, 2010, 9:22 pmNick says:
Bill Clinton was something of a universalist, or what Kanazawa calls liberal instead. Because Bill Clinton didn’t think nation building and free trade were un- or anti-American. But John Kerry, John Edwards, Joe Biden, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton, in their campaigns for president, disagreed with his view. They spent their resources explaining to us that Bill Clinton was wrong, that foreigners actually ought to fend for themselves, or were ripping us off, or were stealing our jobs. And as for George Bush, he was famously against nation building, in 2000, himself. (As distinct from what Bush spent, as president, fighting African AIDs and everything else.)
February 27, 2010, 9:26 pmbadlaw says:
Intelligence quite literally has nothing to do with ideology.
February 27, 2010, 9:31 pmAre More Intelligent People More Likely to Be Liberal? | Liberal Whoppers says:
[...] Are More Intelligent People More Likely to Be Liberal? [...]
February 27, 2010, 9:35 pmJasonF says:
Prof. Somin, have you considered the possibility that as a non-liberal, you’re simply not intelligent enough to understand the article?
February 27, 2010, 9:42 pmaeolius says:
I have read many of the above comments with much amusement. Or perhaps dismay at the ease at which readers of this rather “high-class” blog are so willing to blow smoke out their ears.
1. This is not an American but a UK journal. In typical American manner the readers blithely assume that the terms “Liberal” and “Conservative” are used in the same manner in the UK as in the US. I do not believe this is the case.
2.Being American you of course are expert about all matters that take scientists years to know. So Evolution,Climate Change and now Altruism. You are instant experts. This is called “magical thinking” appropriate for children, psychotics, brain damaged and those in simpler societies.
3.the definition of liberal “genuine concern for the welfare of genetically unrelated others and the willingness to contribute larger proportions of private resources for the welfare of such others.”
This seems to be derived from the theory of Kin Selection, well established in genetics and biology.
February 27, 2010, 9:49 pmTo know how this definition was arrived at one would have to look at the articles know the references used to arrive at the definition.
Without that to have an opinion is useless, but is entertaining.
cboldt says:
– Intelligence quite literally has nothing to do with ideology. –
February 27, 2010, 9:50 pmI hypothesize, based on observation, that intelligence and gullibility are not correlated.
Laura(southernxyl) says:
So tell us, what do you imagine we Americans think about evolution, climate change, and altruism?
February 27, 2010, 9:53 pmLaura(southernxyl) says:
(Interesting that American and scientists are evidently mutually exclusive groups.)
February 27, 2010, 9:54 pmShelbyC says:
Heh. Why should we listen to you when you don’t even know where we blow smoke from?
February 27, 2010, 9:58 pmCato The Elder says:
Sigh; this is quite false. IQ is the single best predictor that we have of educational attainment; rated performance on the job; fatal workplace accidents; age-related mortality rates; and a plethora of “lifestyle” diseases. Just look here at this study, that was reported only 2 weeks ago, where they found that IQ was the second-best predictor of cardiovascular disease, only behind smoking. Perhaps Kanazawa is mistaken in this particular domain*, but you should know that your gross generalization doesn’t fit the evidence. (“g, jobs, and Life“, Gottfredson 2005)
You know, I don’t mean to pick on you either, but I am often struck by the fact, that, when arguing about certain sensitive topics such as race, ethnicity, and intelligence, plenty of sophisticated people who should know better feel incredibly at ease making broad (and contrary) assertions, which one doesn’t really see in other areas. Say, if there’s a Birther ranting on about “native-born Americans”, he’s going to get smacked down in a hurry by someone knowledgeable on the VC. Intelligent Design proponents are quickly corrected when they frequent places like Ars Technica. But only when discussing the aforementioned topics will even obviously ignorant people earnestly argue the exact opposite of the truth. It’s disturbing, IMO.
*: I think Kanazawa is wrong because I suspect intelligence never comes into play when formulating political beliefs. First of all, like Prof. Somin realizes, people form their political beliefs in “baskets”; even the brightest of us cannot be fully informed on all the different issues at stake. But even on topics where we have narrow competence it’s much more likely we take our opinions on the issues by inventing post-hoc rationalizations of initial lower emotional responses. E.g, there’s research showing that the amygdala and limbic system — the emotional centers of the brain — activate before there is any time for reflective thinking (but for some reason I’m unable to track down my links at the moment). Apparently efforts to predict political ideology have been quickly honing in more towards personality and the Big Five model than intelligence.
February 27, 2010, 9:58 pmmack says:
Maybe liberals are more educated and intelligent – though I doubt this study really proves that. What I have found is that political labels have little to do with true intelligence, let alone wisdom. I have met very bright and intelligent people who were also some of the most foolish, egocentric and narcissistic individuals one could hope to meet. I have conversely met many people of average or below average intelligence that had the humility and self-knowledge to be truly wise.
February 27, 2010, 9:59 pmUnbranded Bovine says:
Political Ideology Quiz:
1. You find a homeless puppy. You:
a) Pet it, pick it up, and adopt it/find it a good home.
b) Kick it.
Results:
If you chose “a”, you are a CONSERVATIVE.
If you chose “b”, you are a LIBERAL.
Heh heh…allow me to define the variables, and I’ll “prove” to you that “liberals” are dumber than pro wrestling fans.
February 27, 2010, 10:03 pm11-B.2O/B4 says:
Even if the study wasn’t flawed in the definitions, I’d offer this observation. IQ is quite literally ONLY a measure of scholastic potential. It stands to some reason that those who have much potential for scholastic aptitude would be more likely to stay in school longer, attain more education. I believe research supports this. Given the general ideological slant of the american (and british?) school system(s), it wouldn’t be shocking to say that people who spend more time in school might tend toward the prevailing political ideals of academia.
February 27, 2010, 10:30 pmMike S. says:
While I hate to resort to ad hominem arguments, Prof. Kanazawa has a long history of publishing shocking results in papers whose methodology will not withstand careful scrutiny. Like the one about beautiful people having more daughters, which proved to be just poor use of statistics. I wouldn’t bother wasting time trying to find all the flaws in one of his papers.
February 27, 2010, 10:36 pmColin says:
He identifies as a strident libertarian, and his co-author identifies as a conservative.
Nice try though.
February 27, 2010, 10:52 pmcubanbob says:
Satoshi Kanazawa apparently isn’t intelligent enough to understand the difference between wisdom and intelligence. His conclusions (based on the excerpts published in this blog) are extremely redolent bullshit. Or to paraphrase Orwell “one has to be an intellectual to believe such things, no ordinary person could be such a fool”.
February 27, 2010, 10:52 pmRainerK says:
Ahh, that’s it! The reason I hang out with the dumb crowd is so that I look more intelligent.
Geez!
February 27, 2010, 10:53 pmjukeboxgrad says:
I realize Colin beat me to it, but I’m going to add to what he said.
rhinoman:
I hope you didn’t bet your whole paycheck. From one of the linked articles:
Maybe you’re trying to prove that conservatives are inclined to ignore evidence and simply jump to conclusions that reflect their own preconceived notions.
By the way, he’s a professor at the London School of Economics. Business schools are not generally known as hotbeds of liberalism.
February 27, 2010, 10:56 pmjccamp says:
Cato -
You’re right. I read your link and I stand corrected. However, I plead poor expositional skills and haste. What I was trying to convey was that the especially bright, the high end of the intelligence strata,
oftensometimes cannot cope with everyday life. Superior native intelligence does not always equate to superior social skills and superior emotional health, leading to superior intelligence does not automatically lead to superior political beliefs or a superior view of the modern world. Certainly when choosing my subordinates while I was working, I looked for brains first. I wasn’t trying to suggest otherwise, although I confess to saying as much. Poor choice of words and a tendency to overstate. However, from my experience, the truly superior were sometimes unable to work with others, less gifted, and consequently, had no value in a co-operative work environment.“I don’t mean to pick on you either…”
We need to learn a little humility from time to time. Considering some of the things I have put up here, I’m probably getting away easy.
I was mainly attempting to dismiss the thrust of “Are Ideologies Endorsed by More Intelligent People More Likely to Be Correct?”
“…the amygdala and limbic system — the emotional centers of the brain — activate before there is any time for reflective thinking…”
Spend 5 minutes around here reading random posts and you will validate that thought.
February 27, 2010, 10:58 pmColin says:
I like how people are citing confirmation bias or similar ideas, yet the discussion of the article has been full of “Hey, he criticized my preferred political ideology; HE MUST BE ONE OF THOSE LIBERAL ACADEMICS!”
February 27, 2010, 11:00 pmfrankcross says:
I would just note that when discussing Arthur Brooks about conservatism being good, nobody including Ilya suggested inaccurate self-identification as a problem. Now, when a study is published associating liberalism with intelligence, suddenly its an issue. I find point III plausible but point II to be embarassing. There’s a great deal of research associating self-identified ideology with policy preferences.
February 27, 2010, 11:00 pmColin says:
I’m actually a student at LSE; it is a) not really a business school, and b) well to the left of the American populace.
February 27, 2010, 11:02 pmAnthony Hardway says:
I have no doubt that liberals are more intelligent. But intelligent in that they are more open to new ideas as well as the empathize with the plight of the general public. That’s why they’re more intelligent, meanwhile hard-edged conservatives do things like this: http://lawblog.legalmatch.com/2010/02/22/if-you-dont-shoot-your-attacker-in-kansas-then-waive-bye-bye-to-claiming-self-defense/
Meaning tighter and stricter interpretation of the law which lead to irrational and unfair results.
February 27, 2010, 11:22 pmNick says:
Now I know why Kanazawa uses the word “liberal” and not a word that’s more precise. To get into Time. To get on CNN.
He is, it turns out, quite smart. He’s a fan of South Park, as all smart people are, and of both Sarah Palin and David Letterman, so he must be very smart. He makes fun of Richard Dawkins and Jeremiah Wright. He points out, very smartly, that health care is not a right.
So all the nationalists, particularists, protectionists, isolationists, socialists and xenophobes who call themselves “liberals” and not “conservatives” will defend him, quite by mistake.
Like I said, very, very smart.
February 27, 2010, 11:47 pmChris Travers says:
I am a software engineer and tend to draw parallels between politics and software engineering since I have extensive experience in the latter. This tends to work because most social and software systems are incredibly complex, and those which have to work all the time have to work all the time.
This is a tough thing. But there are two rules for making it work:
1) Avoid rapid changes, as they are disruptive and cause bug. Instead focus on slow, incremental change. Evolution beats revolution.
2) Avoid new ideas until they have been proven. Let someone else set up experiments.
The most intelligent people (politically) in American politics and law, IMO, acknowledge and accept these things regardless of whether they may identify themselves as liberals, conservatives, or other. However, if you note, they tell you how to ensure change, not what direction to go in. In short, it is a methodology, not an agenda. However, it is a fundamentally conservative methodology.
In my industry, the one which pushes “innovation” more than probably any other industry out there, the proper ways of accomplishing change are conservative in nature. Also, it tends to suggest we will never have a President who accepts such things….
It comes down to whether you think seemingly good ideas are generally good, or whether they are dangerous.
February 28, 2010, 12:03 amBob K says:
Cato, I think you’re spot on. Perhaps this is why I find libertarians fascinating. Those who have arrived at a libertarian ideology have, in my experience, done so as a result of critically reviewing the emotion-laden belief systems of their parents, their teachers, their colleagues, themselves. They cannot be accused of being intellectually lazy. I’d contrast that with many supposedly intelligent people of both progressive and conservative ideologies who lazily fall back on their emotional beliefs with which they were raised (or marinated, in the case of university) whenever a political issue comes along.
February 28, 2010, 12:24 ambbbeard says:
If you’re a liberal, and you fall for Kanazawa’s conclusion, that says more about your intelligence than any study ever could.
February 28, 2010, 2:22 amRedlands says:
When he decides to discuss wisdom instead of intelligence let me know.
February 28, 2010, 2:32 amAnatid says:
One interesting study found that the variation in IQ in lower-income individuals was mainly due to environment, while the variation in IQ in high-income individuals was mainly due to genetics. Another study had low-IQ kids play educational computer games, and after a single week, their average tested IQ rose 13 points. In short, environmental enrichment (did you go to a good primary school? did you parents read to you at home when you were a child?) is the most important factor in determining IQ. A child of low-IQ parents cross-fostered by high-IQ parents will have a higher IQ than his siblings who stayed with their birth parents.
The ability to be socially successful also correlates with early environmental enrichment. Being raised by a mentally healthy parent in a low-stress, well-nourished, educationally-enriched environment will both boost your IQ and lower your chances of developing a mental illness or grossly antisocial behaviors. Sorry, jccamp, but this correlation is far stronger than the incidence of your stereotypical high-functioning, intelligent but socially incompetent Asperger’s professor.
This thread is reminding me of a conversation a friend of mine had with her deeply religious, highly conservative cousins. They were complaining that it’s very difficult to find a good conservative university to attend. All the great universities, they said, were too liberal. My friend replied, “Yeah, it’s almost as though being educated makes you liberal.”
Some much more compelling data I once saw found that conservativism (I forget how they defined it) correlates with withdraw-related behaviors, with right-brain activity, and with a greater fear response to novel stimuli. Liberalism correlated with approach-related behaviors, with left-brain activity, and with a greater pleasure response to novel stimuli. If your definition of “liberal” has any overlap with “progressive” or your definition of “conservative” has any overlap with “traditional” then this can make sense. Although as Chris Travers warns, this isn’t necessarily a good thing; IIRC, the folks who were first to embrace the theory of evolution were also the first to embrace phrenology.
February 28, 2010, 2:58 amjukeboxgrad says:
Colin, thanks, I didn’t know.
February 28, 2010, 3:06 amjso says:
my study proves that liberals tend to be more conceited and self delusional
and I based it on this other guy’s study that claims liberals are smarter than everyone else
February 28, 2010, 3:26 amNoah David Simon says:
I would not of survived my life if I had not been a liberal. If anything the animalistic element that attempts to survive and does not articulate it’s goals or desires is likely to be liberal. Conservatism or self interest only comes out in educated forums that protect us from the pitch fork mob… that is unless you speak of other forums that merely focus on ritual and tradition which in essence runs contrary to self interest again.
February 28, 2010, 3:57 amButternut says:
Liberal, Conservative. Smart, Stupid. All quite deep and complicated and best left to those who have successfully negotiated the objective and rational realm of academia where really, really smart is summed up in the term tenure.
This one damn near busted my bullshit meter.
February 28, 2010, 5:23 amStephen Lathrop says:
I prefer to reverse the analysis. Are people who endorse ideologies which turn out to be helpful more likely to be intelligent? And the converse.
February 28, 2010, 5:50 amTomG says:
Stephen’s hit the crux to me – those who really care to make things better/right versus
February 28, 2010, 6:52 amthose who don’t – or merely profess/pretend to care to …. Liberals may claim to be
smartest – but the truly intelligent are those wise enough to know what ought to be done
in a world of limited resources and finite time. The self-important on the other hand
(fill in the blanks). Cheers.
sputnik says:
“Liberals,” what definition?
February 28, 2010, 7:36 amThe one everybody in the world uses? The one most people are proud to be or strive to be?
Or the one invented in USA and basically meaning ultra lefty-socialists?
Yep, those are stupid.
But liberals, the true once are definitely much more intelligent then retrogrades -conservatives.
no study needed for that conclusion, we all can see it in our everyday life and what happened to the GOP-total intellectual degradation and drowning in lies inspired by R.Ailes and affiliates
Nick says:
Reading the whole thing doesn’t necessarily help, but I have a new theory, at least. Because what he says is that more intelligent individuals are more likely to espouse “evolutionarily novel values,” whether or not those values make sense. He includes vegetarianism, monarchism, communism, feminism and “pacifism (for men)” on that list. Also on the list, “libertarianism,” of which he says this:
Entirely right. Which makes what he says next so perverse.
And he quotes surveys in which people say they would, if they could, quite happily pay more than they pay, although these people don’t actually volunteer, in practice, to send more money in.
And, as it happens, Democratic Party politicians don’t actually ask the voters, either, to pay more money in tax. They promise only to raise taxes on a tiny, very small, undeserving and “unpatriotic” (in Joe Biden’s word) minority of plutocrats and elitists who smoke cigars while wearing top hats.
As for Franklin Roosevelt, who paid as little tax as he legally could, even after he became president, and who wore a top hat, and as for all the other politicians, like Charlie Rangel or Chris Dodd, who hate to pay tax, and as for the current cabinet, who also don’t send extra cash but in fact, sometimes, pay no tax, and as for the many millions of Americans who pay no income tax, and identify themselves as “liberals” in surveys like this, they are “liberals” in that particular sense.
But, to go back to the start, Democratic Party politicians also suggest that the people who sit at the very extreme end of the category called “genetically unrelated others,” actual non-American foreigners overseas, are just as wicked and anti-American as those “Benedict Arnold CEOs” who give these foreigners jobs.
And not much better than what these politicians believe of Iraqis and, since the inauguration, Afghans as well.
Nor do these politicians much care for the populace in Honduras, Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, Sudan, or for poor people anywhere else.
Which actually makes a great deal of sense. After all, the money spent on transfer payments within a fixed territory, or on pensions for state employees, is money that can’t be spent on the vast majority of the human race living everywhere else. Most people are unlucky enough to have been born on the wrong side of the largely random lines drawn on our maps. (Socialists are, by necessity, nationalists.)
But in any case, to start over again, it’s a fact that people who call themselves “conservatives” are more likely than “liberals” or “moderates” to give their “private resources” to people who aren’t related to them.
Which means that “conservatives” are “liberals” I guess. Except he then specifies tax.
Again, entirely right. But what he ought to then add is that it’s evolutionarily familiar and natural to believe in a God-like government, and even more “evolutionarily novel” to think like Friedrich Hayek instead. Many people with advanced degrees have no idea what the phrase “spontaneous order” could possibly mean. Compared to Hayek, they’re Cro-Magnon Men.
Is “left-wing liberalism” less ethnocentric than the liberalism of the Enlightenment?
February 28, 2010, 7:44 amsputnik says:
Sure there’s no question that there are intelligent people who are conservative and religious. However, being conservative at present by the American definition generally means accepting many claims that are factually untrue, believing a revisionist history of the United States, accepting “Voodoo Economics” in place of actual economics, and rejecting modern science. There really should be no question that there will be a tendency for intelligent people to tend to be more liberal.
February 28, 2010, 7:47 amWhen many in the conservative movement reject intelligence as elitism and pride themselves on their know-nothing attitude, this can only lead to the results of that study.
Arkady says:
Heh. Nietzsche, huh? Guess we’ll just mark you down in the conservative, but not stupid group.
February 28, 2010, 8:58 amArkady says:
Just let me be clear: Anybody who would take a study like this seriously is not somebody you’d want to share a long taxi ride with.
February 28, 2010, 9:07 amLaura(southernxyl) says:
It wouldn’t be surprising that anybody who defines conservatism the way Sputnik does would identify as a liberal.
If I said that being liberal at present by the American definition generally means following people who tell you to do as they say and not as they do, believing a revisionist history of the United States, thinking that any outcome must be good as long as it involves (Republican) haves forking over money to the have-nots and not asking any questions, and rejecting modern science in favor of what charlatons who won’t show you their data tell you is consensus, then there really should be no question that there will be a tendency for intelligent people to tend to be more conservative.
I think Anatid is saying that IQ is like height. If your family is well-enough off that your mother had good nutrition when you were in the womb, and you had good nutrition while you were growing up, then your height will be determined by heredity. In a situation where you and your mother didn’t get enough to eat, and maybe what you did get was of low nutritional value, your height will be determined by environment.
February 28, 2010, 9:08 ammattski says:
Here is another angle on that.
February 28, 2010, 9:36 amsputnik says:
here is an excellent read on Krugman: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/03/01/100301fa_fact_macfarquhar
I had a similar path to politics as he did, until 2000 i did not care much
February 28, 2010, 9:44 amDjDiverDan says:
(1) Keith Olberman
February 28, 2010, 9:47 am(2) Rachel Maddow
(3) James Carville
ShelbyC says:
But per Unbranded Bovine above, liberals kick puppies. Why would rejecting all the bad things you attribute to conservatives cause people to kick puppies?
February 28, 2010, 9:48 ammattski says:
Now, now, Laura. You’re taking this the wrong way. It’s your well being us liberals are concerned about. Didn’t you know that there is a greater chance of a camel passing through the eye of a needle than for a rich man (or woman) to get into Heaven?
February 28, 2010, 9:59 ammattski says:
DjDiverDan,
No doubt, Olberman has had his moments of pique & poor judgement. But watching his program, on balance, is going to add to your understanding of the world. The same cannot be said for Limbaugh or Beck.
As for Maddow, I think she does a pretty good job. Carville, I didn’t know he had a show.
But I don’t see how a credible person can deny the basic GOP scam: their populism is fake, it takes advantage of the bewildered anger of low-wage, poorly informed, powerless Americans while delivering them nothing. The GOP serves the rich.
February 28, 2010, 10:08 amDjDiverDan says:
But those definitions are themselves culturally driven and of relatively recent invention. The fact is that neither “conservative” nor “liberal” have any consistent meaning in public discourse. Self-identified “conservatives” would define “conservatism” as mirroring their own beliefs, and among a group of 1,000 self-identified “conservatives”, you might have at least 20 (perhaps many more) mutually exclusive definitions of exactly the same term, and perhaps none of those definitions would match up well with a definition of “conservative” given by a self-identified “liberal”. Meanwhile, if self-identified “conservatives” were asked to define what it meant to be “liberal”, the definitions would likely be a complete caricature, with little in common with the definition given by a self-identified liberal. There are simply no consistently meaningful and precise definitions of the terms “liberal” or “conservative.” I think the comments to this post, the nasty little carping, the barbs, the insults, demonstrate that the labels do nothing except make rational discourse on these terms impossible.
I was, for a very long time, a self-identified “conservative,” but of the Barry Goldwater/Libertarian stripe – in favor of smaller government, a strong national defense, free markets, and little or no government interference in privately structured relationships. A long time ago (say about the time of the American Revolution), many of these very same views were consistent with the classical liberalism of Locke and Rousseau. Now, “conservatism” has been redefined to encompass the Religious Right, many of whose views I find abhorrent, the anti-immigrant xenophobes, and the flag-waving patriots who want to ban flag-burning and any other form of protest with which they disagree. But I still cannot stomach the policy agenda of much of the left wing of the Democratic Party – ever-increasing government, redistribution of income, racial preferences, a theory of the Constitution completely untethered to the text of the Document (and no limits at all to the federal government’s power under the Commerce Clause), so while I no longer self-identify as a “conservative”, I still find myself a reliably Republican voter, at least on Statewide and National offices. BTW, my measured IQ is 158, and I’m a member of Mensa. So where do I fit in all your labeling? Almost any label you choose to place on me, I’ll likely disagree with you.
February 28, 2010, 10:24 amegd says:
(4) Barack Obama
I wonder if there’s any way to measure how people attained their political beliefs. Have all of these people really understood the modern differences between ‘conservatism’ (self-reliance) and ‘liberalism’ (social reliance), or did they choose their political beliefs based on some other factors: having more liberal friends; hearing “smart people are liberal” and reasoning “I’m smart, therefore I’m liberal”; having liberal parents; attending a liberal school; or some other non-relevant factor?
It’s obvious that the people who are successful in life are more likely to behave in a conservative manner, so I wonder if the intelligent liberals in this test are merely professing a belief in self-superiority (I can do it, but no one else can).
February 28, 2010, 10:29 amLaura(southernxyl) says:
Thank you for illustrating the “do as I say, not as I do” portion of my definition of “liberal”. I meant for it to be satire, but maybe it’s not.
February 28, 2010, 10:30 amSarcastro says:
The left’s populism is fake, they worship only the growth of the state and all their policies are in furtherance of that end! Every single one has a distorted, state-worshiping version of history that is just wrong! Plus all the ones I’ve met are clearly all dumb.
The right’s populism is fake, they worship only the growth of their own pocketbooks, and all their policies are in furtherance of that end! Every single one has a distorted, state-hating version of history that is just wrong! Plus all the ones I’ve met are all super dumb.
The important thing is that my side’s populism is true, and the other sides is not. My side’s interpretation of history – true, the other side? False. Blatant lies, a child could see.
This study proves that the left is superior, or maybe it’s some kind of ivory-tower persecution of Real Americans.
Or perhaps, it’s silly wankery that seems to be encouraging similar wankery among partisans on both sides.
February 28, 2010, 10:33 amveteran says:
Interesting read, first part of the bog, with exceptiions, a little thin but the last half worth it.
I thought of a lot of things to say while reading, more while I cooked bacon, eggs, grits, toast and coffee for my wife and me. And even more as I drank coffee and smoked cigarettes on my deck admiring my “country grass” as it slowly changes from yellow to small patches of green in anticipation of spring.
Yes, I thought of a lot of things to write and thought better of it but I do have 3 observations from “my” life and a quote from my favorite philosopher. Some of you will know what I mean, others not.
Sometimes, trying to convince or convert someones thinking, is way more trouble than its worth. People convert themselves because that is what they want.
There are no athetists in foxholes, a fact no liberal knows first hand, because emmersion conversion is permanent.
If you don’t take care of you and yours you can not “really” help anyone no matter how much you care.
A quote from my favorite philosopher, who is not Mao..
“I believe in everything, nothing is sacred. I believe in Nothing, everything is sacred”
so sayeth “The Chink”
February 28, 2010, 11:03 am“Even Cowgirls get the Blues”
MartyA says:
There is no question that we liberals are more intelligent.
One point of clarification, however. Kanazawa says a liberal is defined as having, “…genuine concern for the welfare of genetically unrelated others and the willingness to contribute larger proportions of private resources for the welfare of such others.”
February 28, 2010, 11:13 amA much more precise and accurate definition would insert the words, “… other peoples’…” immediately before the word “private.”
NRWO says:
IQ is quite literally ONLY a measure of scholastic potential.
Such comments are either naïve or misleading.
Over a century of research indicates that cognitive ability tests are typically the best predictors of performance at work (as well as at school).
The classic citation in this area is Hunter and Schmidt (1998, Psych Bull). The bottom line is that cognitive ability tests not only predict work performance but do so better than virtually all other selection tests used by employers.
Moreover, the incremental predictive validity of other selection tests (e.g., personality tests), beyond cognitive ability tests, is typically low. In other words, once cognitive ability is used to explain variance in work performance, other variables (e.g., personality) typically explain only small amounts of variance.
See, e.g., “The validity and utility of selection methods in personnel psychology: Practical and theoretical implications of 85 years of research findings.” By Schmidt, Frank L.; Hunter, John E.
Psychological Bulletin. Vol 124(2), Sep 1998, 262-274.
Abstract: This article summarizes the practical and theoretical implications of 85 years of research in personnel selection. On the basis of meta-analytic findings, this article presents the validity of 19 selection procedures for predicting job performance and training performance and the validity of paired combinations of general mental ability (GMA) and the 18 other selection procedures. Overall, the 3 combinations with the highest multivariate validity and utility for job performance were GMA plus a work sample test (mean validity of .63), GMA plus an integrity test (mean validity of .65), and GMA plus a structured interview (mean validity of .63).
I’m with Cato: Sigh.
February 28, 2010, 11:24 amConnecticut Lawyer says:
It seems that a whole cottage industry has sprung up dedicated to proving that liberals are smarter than conservatives. It’s kind of like that old lawyer’s saw: when the facts are on your side, pound on the facts, when the law is on your side, pound on the law, and when neither the facts nor the law are on your side, pound on the table. Unable or unwilling to debate on the merits, at least some liberals have decided instead to just call their adversaries “stupid” as loudly as they can. Oh, well. It’s all very amusing.
In a similiar vein, there were numerous stories after the recent health care confab about how brilliant, commanding, and incisive President Obama was – wow, he could talk for six hours intelligently about health care policy! All those stupid Republicans could do was, well, stare in awe at the great man.
I wonder if any of these folks have ever heard of confirmation bias?
February 28, 2010, 11:26 amNRWO says:
My comment above responds to the remark, “IQ is quite literally ONLY a measure of scholastic potential.”
February 28, 2010, 11:28 amA. Criminal says:
Actually not. Beside the fact that one can dig up any number of studies showing the opposite of what you claimed, childhood IQ is far more malleable than adult IQ. That’s why kids in programs like Head Start show (slight) gains (in IQ or school performance) while the kids are actually in the program, but there are no lasting measurable effects after the kids leave the program. Absent FAS or being raised in a closet, adult IQ is almost entirely genetic.
More excellent info from the same source: http://www.udel.edu/educ/gottfredson/reprints/
Regardless of the validity of Kanazawa’s study, IQ differences are always the result of “stereotype threat.”(/sarcasm)
February 28, 2010, 11:33 amLaura(southernxyl) says:
My personal opinion of the Head Start IQ effect is that once the kids are out of Head Start they get dumped back into the general population and they lose ground again. Parents who read to their kids and do other intelligence-enriching things don’t stop all of that when the kid starts kindergarten or first grade.
My further thoughts about IQ here.
February 28, 2010, 11:41 ambbbeard says:
Actually, this is reminiscent of the Bush-Gore exit polling, which showed a curious inversion in educational level [a correlate with "intelligence"] and support for one or the other candidate. Here’s a transcription of the CNN poll (the original seems to be gone) — scroll down to the education graph. Starting with the least-educated, those with no high school degree, Bush trailed Gore by 20 percentage points. But Bush won a majority of high-school educated people, an even larger majority of those with some college education, and again a larger proportion of those with an undergraduate degree. So it would appear that more education translated into more support for Bush. But Gore won the bloc with a post-graduate degree by about 5 points.
What does this mean? The commenter on the web site linked above describes Bush winning the “partially-educated” bloc. I would proffer the counter-spin that Gore won both under- and over-educated voters ;-)
Personally, I think it is a symptom of the fact that academics tend to have a very simplistic view of the world, and are therefore politically similar to those who are actually simple. Some academics are smart enough to realize that their simplistic views are no basis for public policy; these are the conservative academics. Most academics, however, are clueless….
And a sign of that cluelessness is any study like Kanazawa’a, which aims to reduce a complex, multifaceted problem like the interrelation between intelligence and politics to a soundbite.
BBB
February 28, 2010, 12:20 pmNRWO says:
Laura is quite correct. The effect of early intervention programs, such as Head Start, on intelligence test performance typically fade over time (Jensen nicely summarizes this work in his opus, The g factor). Kids who receive such interventions typically return to baseline and, over time, show levels of intelligence test performance no different from kids who did not receive the intervention.
It should be noted that the literature on intervention effects is often difficult to interpret, for three reasons: (a) kids are not randomly assigned to the intervention group; (b) kids are not followed long enough to determine if effects are maintained (but when they are so followed, effects typically fade); and (c) kids are not given IQ tests different from those they were trained on (so it’s difficult to determine if effects would transfer to other tests).
One exception is the Abecedarian project, which did randomly assign, assessed maintenance of effects, and used different tests. Modest increases in IQ (5 IQ points) were maintained over time, at least until the last follow-up (which, I believe, was a decade out), though there is debate about the cause of increases (e.g., better nutrition or test-specific effects), and whether the causal agent(s) can be isolated.
Anyhow, this is off-topic, so I’ll quit.
February 28, 2010, 12:33 pmSobre says:
More intelligent people are more likely to ignore provocations like this and other periodical mainstream journalism articles making this discredited point.
February 28, 2010, 12:40 pmjiffy says:
I don’t think this can be right, since phrenology was first postulated about 50 years before evolution and, I believe, had begun falling into scientific disrepute by the time Darwin published On the Origin of Species.
February 28, 2010, 1:17 pmLee Kane says:
It would be interesting to see the distribution of “liberalism” and “conservatism” vs. intelligence. For example, is it a linear progression, with the intensity and quantity of “liberalism” increasing in a linear progression with increasing levels of “intelligence”? Or is there a non-linear curve? What if as IQ surpasses a certain base value — e.g., 132 IQ — you see a decline in the “liberalism” quotient as IQ increases. So “more intelligent” people tend to be liberals but “genius level” people tend more toward the political mean, or more toward “conservative.”
Of course, the ridiculous premise that makes the entire question a joke is, as Ilya states, the incorrect conflation of “concern for others” with liberalism. That’s an untested assumption. You’d really need to study whether those holding so-called conservative values score lower or higher on an empathy test vs. those holding so-called liberal values. And, as Ilya also surmises, you’d need to do that study independent of political self-identification. So rather than ask someone if they are a liberal or conservative, you’d ask something like, “Do you believe health care insurance should be directly managed by the government to produce the best outcomes? Or do you believe a free market in health care, with some government regulation, will produce the best outcomes?” (etc.) Then do some test to study respondents empathy and another to study their IQ.
Further, you’d need a control to factor out the impact of a college education on political values — since most professors may use their authority and curriculums to inculcate liberalism in their students — and “more intelligent” people may also correlate to those who have had higher education and thus been subject to that sort of inculcation.
For what it’s worth, I suspect that there is an inverse correlation between intelligence and those who believe Kanazawa’s study to be an accurate reflection of anything meaningful.
February 28, 2010, 1:58 pmKele says:
The problem with the study is that it’s evolutionary pyschology. Not that evolutionary psychology is bad in and of itself, but the way it has been practiced just leads me to tend to ignore whatever they say.
February 28, 2010, 2:49 pmmattski says:
Hey, I have an idea.
Let’s take a break from our petty disagreements and watch US and Canada in the gold medal game!
February 28, 2010, 3:07 pmJohn Herbison says:
Just my opinion here, to be taken with the caveat that opinions are like a**holes–everyone has (at least) one, and neither should be offered casually.
Distinguishing between liberals and conservatives on the basis of any single marker or characteristic is unlikely to be effective or accurate. A series of “agree or disagree” type questions might be more useful.
FWIW, one of the propositions I would posit is: Agree or disagree–the love of money is the root of all evil?
Just curious–do other commenters have additional suggestions?
February 28, 2010, 3:13 pmMike McDougal says:
What are you talking about?
Among other things, IQ is posively correlated with income, net worth, job performance, and life expectancy. IQ is negatively correlated with corruption, criminality, and all sorts of diseases.
And your position is that those things don’t have much to do with coping with modern life? REALLY?
February 28, 2010, 3:15 pmNRWO says:
Some people seem to dismiss the link between intelligence and liberalism too quickly. It’s nothing more than “evolutionary psychology”… It’s those crazy liberal academics again…
Kanazawa begins with something most commenters have not provided (or cannot provide): Data. The data for a link between intelligence and political affiliation is pretty consistent. People who self-identify as liberals typically do better on intelligence tests. People who self-identify as conservatives typically do poorly. The effects vary in magnitude (and with types of political surveys), but are remarkably consistent.
Here’s a challenge: Find a single, published study, which states the opposite, where liberalism is negatively correlated with intelligence tests. If you can’t, that says something. Because in science the prospect of individual fame and fortune for discovering a contrary and interesting result would probably trump party affiliation (for at least one crazy liberal): If conservatism is related to good test performance, at least some people would be eager to point that out.
The problem is that, in the aggregate, people who self identify as conservatives (not the people on this blog!) tend to have characteristics that depress IQ tests scores. For example, such people also tend to rank high on measures of authoritarianism and dogmatism (you might say they’re more principled!), which are negatively correlated with test scores.
My own hunch is that the Kanazawa’s data are valid, but that the relationships he obtains are artifact of conservatives being lower on the trait of Openness (there’s considerable evidence to support this proposition, especially for religious conservatives). Being low on Openness would tend to depress test scores on test of crystallized intelligence (knowledge tests), but less so on tests of fluid intelligence (reasoning tests). That’s my hunch, anyway.
February 28, 2010, 5:10 pmJohn Moore says:
An interesting study would be to see the IQ correlation with support for extremely damaging ideologies. For example, 20th century communism was very popular with large numbers of the intellectual elite, and yet was the deadliest and one of the most oppressive ideologies in history.
I suspect that high IQ people who end up in cognitive jobs tend to be more attracted to utopian ideologies, most of which are on the left. Adherence to relatively extreme libertarianism, for example (although not on the left), often captures intelligent, educated and pampered young people who are not captured by progressivism.
Put another way, higher IQ leads more often to educational and work environments (academia, government/NGO) most conducive to leftist ideologies.
Another factor is that higher IQ often leads to valuing more abstract systems, and leftist ideologies are most often full of convoluted abstractions, about which great arguments rage (only among the cognoscenti ).
February 28, 2010, 5:47 pmDesiderius says:
Anonsters,
“If the percentages are large enough, one might think that what the decades of research actually show is that pundits and scholars are the ones with the poor grasp of the meaning of terms like “liberal” and “conservative.””
We have a winner.
The lost tribes of liberalism on the “Right” as well as those following Washington’s advice to remain independent of faction may well now comprise the majority of liberals in the American context.
February 28, 2010, 6:17 pmDesiderius says:
NRWO,
“My own hunch is that the Kanazawa’s data are valid, but that the relationships he obtains are artifact of conservatives being lower on the trait of Openness (there’s considerable evidence to support this proposition, especially for religious conservatives). Being low on Openness would tend to depress test scores on test of crystallized intelligence (knowledge tests), but less so on tests of fluid intelligence (reasoning tests). That’s my hunch, anyway.”
A mind is like a parachute. If open all the time, it’s a real drag…
Both NRWO and John Moore are on to something. We need better ways of assessing the value of concrete, vs. abstract, intelligence.
February 28, 2010, 6:19 pmElliot says:
Want to be intelligent? it’s easy. Just get a bunch of folks together in a mutual admiration society and tell each other you are all very intelligent. Then look down on anyone not in your group.
Want to step even higher? Want to be an intellectual? Do the same thing. Just tell each other you are all intellectuals. Then you get to look down on those you define as not being intellectually curious (That means they don’t care what you say.)
February 28, 2010, 8:42 pmKen Arromdee says:
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. A result that is so extremely convenient for confirming the political bias of the left is an extraordinary claim.
You don’t need to go searching to find that. It’s in the article.
When Kanazawa actually correlates measures of intelligence with views of particular issues, he finds that, controlling for various other variables, more intelligent General Social Survey (GSS) respondents are less likely to support government-mandated efforts to ” reduce the differences in income between people with high incomes and those with low incomes.”
February 28, 2010, 8:52 pmLee Kane says:
Something to consider:
1.) Republicans are “the party of the rich,” and “supported by rich people.”
2.) High IQ correlates with high income.
3.) Therefore those who support Republicans have high IQs.
4.) High IQs correlate with liberalism.
5.) Therefore, Republicans are also Liberals.
Similarly,
February 28, 2010, 9:13 pm1.) Low-incomes correlate with low-IQs and Democrats are the party of the common people.
6.) Low-IQs correlate with conservatism.
7.) Therefore, Democrats are conservatives.
NRWO says:
Ken,
An important distinction in psychometrics is between a construct (liberalism) and an indicator of the construct (reducing wage differentials). Reducing wage differentials between low and high earners may be an indicator of liberalism, but it’s not the only indicator and, despite what you (or I) may believe, it may not be the most important indicator.
To identify marker variables for a construct (i.e., a single variable that nicely measures the construct), exploratory factor analysis would normally be performed with several indicators of the construct; the indicators with the highest loadings on the construct would be identified as marker variables.
I’m not sure if the loading for “reducing wage differentials” would exceed, say “supporting abortion rights” or “favoring gun control laws” or “supporting affirmative action” or “raising the minimum wage”, or the statement, “I’m a liberal”. In any case, your point is well taken.
My hunch is that, in the aggregate, liberals care more about reducing wage differentials between men and women, or between blacks and whites, and less about differentials between “high” and “low” earners. If so, that would tend to lower the loading of the variable you reference.
My hunch, too, is that general statements about one’s overall political ideology (“I’m a liberal” or I’m a conservative”) are far better indicators of one’s core ideology, compared to specific statement about a particular issue (“I want to decrease wage differentials”).
Anyhow, I looked up the article. Intelligence, as measured by PPVT (in NLSAH) or by Word Sum (in GSS), is a far better correlate of people who self identify as liberal than the other variables. People who identify themselves as liberal perform better on intelligence tests, after a host of confounds (education, sex, age, earnings) are taken into account. Some of standardized effects from the NLSAH (Table 1) are reported below.
Liberal Political Ideology
Adolescent intelligence: .2380
Age: –.0232
Sex: –.1260
Education .0750
Earnings –.0640
Note: It’s odd to find a negative relationship between intelligence and earnings. Perhaps the sign of the coefficient is due to less intelligent adolescents working during their high school years?
February 28, 2010, 10:14 pmAlanDownunder says:
It’s not so much that liberalism means intelligence; it’s that what passes for conservatism in the US today means either dumb tribalism or shameless rat cunning.
February 28, 2010, 10:18 pmNRWO says:
A little reflection reveals the following statement makes little sense:
But I bet it’s true. E.g.,
“Linda is 31 years old, single, outspoken, and very bright [...] She majored in philosophy, and is deeply concerned with issues of discrimination and social justice.
“Is Linda more likely to be: (a) a bank teller, or (b) a bank teller and active in the feminist movement?
February 28, 2010, 10:34 pmuberVU - social comments says:
Social comments and analytics for this post…
This post was mentioned on Twitter by cschweitzer: On that whole “liberals are smarter” study: http://volokh.com/2010/02/27/are-more-intelligent-people-more-likely-to-be-liberal/...
February 28, 2010, 10:36 pmBoss says:
Think of it this way. Most people eat meat. That’s how we evolved. It’s what we’re born with. But not eating meat is an uncommon choice. It’s an idea, something different and new, that goes against the genes we’re born with. The idea of not eating meat is something only an intellectual, to paraphrase Orwell, could ever believe. Whereas eating meat is what we do because it worked well. Over the last several million years, eating meat has helped us. But not eating meat is what some people do not because of evolution but because they choose to.
February 28, 2010, 10:38 pmAlan K. Henderson says:
I’ve noticed that there are a few ideas out there that are so insane that only a genius could conceive of them. The examples that come to mind are Hegel’s system of logic that makes thesis and antithesis mutually compatible through synthesis, and B. F. Skinner’s notion that all human behavior is directed by environment and none of it by self. Both these examples happen to spring from the left.
February 28, 2010, 10:41 pmLaura(southernxyl) says:
By wage differential we mean max minus min, yes? The problem with reducing wage differentials is this:
You can reduce wage differentials to zero if everybody is poor as dirt. Is that better?
You can increase wage differentials if the people at the top increase their wages by 50% and the people at the bottom, by 45% at the same time. Are not the people at the bottom better off now? Is it really hurting them, that the people at the top make even more money? Would they rather not have had that 45% hike?
February 28, 2010, 11:25 pmBruce Hayden says:
Someone above pointed out the educational credentials of voters in the 2000 election. Things really didn’t change that much in 2008. Obama was strongest with those w/o a high diploma, and those with graduate degrees. Republicans appear strongest right now with those with some college or just a bachelor’s degree. In other word, the middle.
From that, I would suggest that in the long run, we aren’t going to find either liberals or conservatives smarter. Sure, liberals have some of the smartest, but they also have more of the lowest achievers (assuming that to some extent, education level equates to IQ).
One thing that IQ does correspond to is ability to handle complexity – the higher the IQ, the more complexity one can deal with comfortably.
February 28, 2010, 11:33 pmStephen Lathrop says:
People below the median of the income distribution might be better off to reject increasing income differences, even if accompanied by pay hikes. Seems like a lot depends on what the overall level of income becomes, how scarce the most desired goods are, and, critically, how thickly populated the higher income levels are.
Problems arise if the most desirable goods are in shortish supply. Such goods will come to seem like necessities to many people. This has clearly happened in our society with higher education, health care, the ability to live in a clean safe environment, and at least a few other things. It hasn’t happened with food and clothing. (These were problems in the past. Under past conditions your hypothetical makes a lot of sense.)
If most of the upper income cohort are not wealthy enough to buy all they want of desirable quasi-necessities, some of those will be left over for less wealthy people. Likewise, if there are too few in the upper cohort. Let the upper cohort grow large enough, or wealthy enough, and the picture changes. Then the wealthy no longer need to pick and choose among the most desirable goods; collectively, the wealthy can buy them all. Poorer people can’t get any.
A more equal income distribution would force the relatively wealthy to scale back and choose just an item or two from the menu, leaving more for others with lesser incomes. That would keep prices lower.
Extreme income inequality which features just a few super-wealthy people at the top of a pyramid may not be as big a problem as a broader income inequality that looks like a dumbbell, with large populations of relatively poor and relatively rich separated by an empty middle. If you have that situation, then your hypothetical unequal wage increases just progressively unbalance the dumbbell. How explosive a social situation that produces may depend on the degree to which goods perceived to be necessities become progressively unaffordable, even for members of the lower income cohort who are willing to sacrifice to get them.
March 1, 2010, 8:59 amegd says:
What point are you trying to make? Rationally, the answer is A, must be A, and always will be A.
If A and B have some probability of < 100%, then the odds of A are always going to be greater than the odds of A & B.
March 1, 2010, 10:04 amSandy says:
This isn’t accurate at all. Pew research just did research of the “DotNet” generation and they happily claim the term liberal. I would agree there has been an attempt to denigrate liberals but thats not the reasoning behind taking up the name progressive. Progressive is simply more accurate to the “left wing ideology” than liberal.
March 1, 2010, 10:38 amNRWO says:
Well, most people don’t think that way. See, e.g., Kahneman and Tversky’s research on cognitive biases.
The “Linda” scenario is a classic in this research.
Anyhow, I had stated above that liberals would tend to focus on income disparities between blacks and whites, or between males and females, and less so on disparities between high and low earners.
If that’s true, it’s ironic, because blacks and females are in the class of low earners, and males and whites are in the class of high earners. So one might conclude (incorrectly) that liberals would necessarily focus just as much on reducing disparities between low and high earners as they would on reducing B-W or M-F disparities.
March 1, 2010, 10:53 amtd says:
“and have a poor grasp of the meaning of terms like “liberal” and “conservative” (at least as they are understood by pundits and scholars”
And you are acknowledging that this would undercut your point equally?
March 1, 2010, 11:33 amJohn Henry says:
Quoting J.S. Mill on 19th century British conservatives and thinking that that has any significance on this conversation reveals the terminology-ignorance of which the author speaks.
March 1, 2010, 2:11 pmlgm says:
There is an analogy between intelligence and “size”. The people most concerned with “size” are the smaller ones. That’s why there so many intelligence threads in conservative blogs.
March 1, 2010, 3:58 pmJohn Herbison says:
Has anyone studied the relative intellectual abilities of authoritarians vis-a-vis libertarians?
March 1, 2010, 7:41 pmLaura(southernxyl) says:
Stephen, that makes sense, but then it points up some problems with raising the minimum wage. If a person making minimum wage would like to make more money so he could order in pizza once in a while, that’s cool, but if he gets more money b/c the minimum wage is raised, guess what will happen to the price of pizza.
I guess rather than wage differentials we could look at standard of living differentials. We do have a lot of necessary unnecessaries now. Back when I was growing up, no one had a VHS or DVD player, a PC of any kind, iPod, Nintendo, or even a microwave oven. They weren’t available at any price. When my parents were growing up, there were no televisions to be had. What the eye doesn’t see, the heart doesn’t grieve for, so to speak. You could also have been carried off by several different kinds of cancer and other diseases that are treatable now; the treatments may or may not be prohibitively expensive for some, but ere now they weren’t available at all.
As to the dumbell-shaped distribution, of course that’s a problem and it can be quite explosive. What’s needed is not only mobility (for the able and ambitious) but also the perception of mobility. In my opinion, this means, among other things, continued focus on quality public education for K-12 and affordable 4-year degrees or technical school programs. Doing end-runs around the mobility track by playing tricks with economics so that people buy houses they can’t afford is psychologically counterproductive, also IMO.
March 1, 2010, 7:45 pmjukeboxgrad says:
That’s the way you see it. Some other people see it this way:
March 1, 2010, 7:50 pmLaura(southernxyl) says:
Yes, that is the way I see it, jbg. Do you think I have somewhere, somehow committed to agreeing with GWB about everything? I kind of doubt that I have.
March 1, 2010, 8:15 pmEvelyn Sinclair says:
Kazinski,
You say: ‘ “liberals” are willing to dedicate larger proportions of others private resources…’ as if that means something. What does it mean to you?
The only thing I see at your ‘Research’ link is this:
“Republicans give a bigger share of their incomes to charity, says a prominent economist”
Where does it say we liberals are willing or able to give away money that belongs to someone else?
What liberals see conservatives try to give away is actual human lives, human lives that do not belong to them, expended in wars of conquest and occupation. We liberals would rather see those lives put to peaceful and productive uses.
We would also prefer to reallocate funds toward things like better schools rather than more prisons, toward human wellbeing rather than corporate welfare.
What we would like to reallocate is publicly funded by our taxes — disproportionately paid by those less wealthy than the elites who can afford to be lavish with charity, when their consciences catch up with them in old age.
We liberals would like to see an easing in the grotesquely disproportionate amounts of money spent on the Military Industrial Complex relative to programs that might do some good.
(How disproportionate? Here is is in cookies: http://www.truemajorityaction.org/oreos)
March 1, 2010, 8:41 pmEvelyn Sinclair says:
Too late to be a progressive. The right wing bile machine has already started redefining the term:
http://tpmlivewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/03/look-out-merriam-webster-bill-oreilly-and-glenn-beck-define-progressivism.php?ref=fpb
Last Friday, Glenn Beck and Bill O’Reilly tried to work out where they differ on the definition of progressivism:
Beck: It’s Marxism without a revolution.
O’Reilly: They just want to take your stuff.
Case closed.
On The O’Reilly Factor, Beck and O’Reilly debated what it really means to be a progressive.
Beck said: “People don’t understand what ‘progressive’ really means. The difference between Marxism and progressivism is, Marxism has a revolution, like what Van Jones would like to do. Progressivism says, ‘bit by bit we’ll eat at the Constitution.’”
O’Reilly disagreed: “Progressivism wants to take your stuff. That’s it. That’s what it is. It wants to take your stuff.”
Beck asked: “They don’t want to kill you?”
“No! Because then they won’t have your stuff,” O’Reilly shot back. …
March 1, 2010, 8:51 pmEvelyn Sinclair says:
Does success make people more “conservative?” !?!?!
I used to be a lot more “conservative” when I was working full bore and so wrapped up in my career that I was ignorant about what else was going on in the world.
I used to complain about tax money that went to Welfare recipients. Then someone asked me, “What about corporate welfare?” The question didn’t mean anything to me. I didn’t understand what it referred to, because I’d never hear of “Corporate welfare.” I became interested in finding out more about what the newspapers don’t talk about, what really happens to my hard earned tax dollars.
You know what? The main stream media is NOT “liberal” in its bias. It speaks for the money that owns it, of course, as well as delivering government propaganda.
I have become less and less ignorant over time, and accordingly the targets of my indignation have shifted.
Lets just pick one example: what rathole did multiple TRILLIONS of our dollars just go down? Was it “liberals” and their little ideas about rescuing some humans from our shamefully Dickensian social policies who REDISTRIBUTED a Gazillion dollars into derivatives schemes that only a few Goldman Sachs Wallstreet bankers can understand? I’d stop worrying about wasting a few dollars on some school lunches when the Goldman piranhas are eating ALL our lunch every day.
Oh, and don’t say Obama is some kind of liberal. He’s OWNED by the banks too, or course.
Liberals are not revelling in feelings of self-superiority. We just have (a) more knowledge and (b) wider priorities besides our own little selves.
We get just as outraged as “conservatives” (quotes, because I can’t figure out what’s being conserved) but we have a huge sensitivity to injustice taking up the room other people might be giving to their self-righteous sense of “morality.”
March 1, 2010, 9:15 pmjukeboxgrad says:
laura:
No, I don’t. And my comment wasn’t intended to suggest that, or as a criticism of you.
================
evelyn:
I like that cookies movie. Here’s a better link for it. In your comment, that parens at the end makes it not work. Next time, just use a space to separate the link from the parens.
Our military spending is at its highest level since WWII, and we spend as much on defense as the rest of the world combined. This is quite remarkable, given that our major enemy went out of business a number of years ago. But when people are scared, they are easy to swindle.
March 1, 2010, 9:25 pmJohn Moore says:
A common, but misguided viewpoint. Journalists decades ago arrogated to themselves editorial judgment claiming that it would make them more objective than if the owners exercised that power. Hence the owners have little power (and frankly, don’t care much) about the slant of the media. The cocoon journalists have created for themselves is very effective, and lets them be liberal and liars without fear of retaliation from management, as long as they don’t go too far in attacking their owners.
March 2, 2010, 8:54 pmJohn Moore says:
Only if you measure it in the most meaningless way – non-inflation adjusted dollars. Our military spending is near its post-war low as a percentage of GDP, having risen a bit since the start of the century. It is way, way below the level of the cold war.
March 2, 2010, 8:55 pmJeff Kline says:
Those differences are infinitesimal. The error rate in individually administered IQ tests (WAIS, WISC, SB) runs around +/- 4.5 to 5pts (depends on age and test). There is no way that a competent Psychologist is going to give weight to these miniscule differences. They are not meaningful. I also wonder what tests they use in those studies to measure IQ, if the tests were brief versions or group administered then the error rate is much larger.
This of course mirrors the problem with the Kanazawa article relying on the PPVT for his IQ measure. This is considered a screening tool at best. It is highly inaccurate and not very useful. Most of the studies he cites in support are old, and none that I saw even examined the PPVT in relation to the latest versions of the primary IQ tests of today. There are better brief tests that can be used than the PPVT.
March 17, 2010, 11:00 pm